As President, he oversaw the ceasefire of the Korean War, kept up the pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, made nuclear weapons a higher defense priority, launched the Space Race by authorizing the establishment of NASA. He was able to help put an end to the Suez Crisis by refusing to back the Israeli, British, and French invasion of Egypt. He also authorized coups in Iran and Guatemala, supported Taiwan over the People's Republic of China, backed the new state of South Vietnam, and ordered an invasion of Lebanon. Ironically, in his farewell address in 1960, Eisenhower warned the country against the increased influence of what he called the "Military Industrial Complex".

Domestically, Eisenhower enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System. The Civil Rights Movement began in earnest during Eisenhower's presidency, as Eisenhower completed the process of desegregating the Armed Forces begun under Harry Truman, and even ordered the desegregation of schools in the District of Columbia. In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States issued their decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation of black and white students in public schools to be unconstitutional.

He was an opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist witch-hunts, but his tactics were not overt. He preferred to ignore McCarthy so as to not validate him, and used executive privilege to thwart McCarthy.

Eisenhower was also the first president to make his health information public. Consequently, the public knew when he had a heart attack in 1955, an operation on his intestines in 1956, and a stroke in 1957. After leaving office, Eisenhower maintained a fairly public life. He died in 1969 of congestive heart failure.

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Dwight Eisenhower was being bandied about as the Republicanpresidential nominee for the 1952 election. In May 1951, as World War III was underway, incumbent PresidentHarry Truman reflected on Eisenhower as possible president, finding him an amiable but lightweight executive better fit to run a car company rather than a country. Truman found Eisenhower a more palatable choice than Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was slowly getting his own campaign underway.[1]

Throughout the remainder of 1951, Eisenhower still seemed to be viable, but McCarthy's increasingly heated rhetoric seemed to be gaining support.[2] Still, Eisenhower's role in World War II did seem to give him an edge over many of his Republican rivals, to say nothing of the Democrats as a whole.[3] The course of the war changed the political calculus completely, when most of the contenders for the presidency were killed by the Sovietatomic bombing of Washington, DC in May 1952.[4] Eisenhower was not in Washington, and so seemed likely to become the Republican nominee by default.[5]

Dwight Eisenhower had only been President of the United States a few months in 1953 when science fiction writer Pete Lundquist realized that fellow author Mark Gordian had somehow plagiarized a story from Lundquist that Lundquist hadn't even completed yet. When Lundquist shared this with editor Jim McGregor, both men contemplated the possibility that Gordian might be a telepath, although McGregor wondered why Gordian would read Lundquist's mind instead of Eisenhower's.[6]

Dwight Eisenhower was a prominent American military leader, who rose to the rank of general during the dictatorial reign of PresidentJoe Steele, and proved instrumental to the country's victory over Japan in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

Eisenhower remained part of the Steele Administration during and after the Japanese War. The Republican Party tried to recruit Eisenhower as their presidential nominee in 1952, but Eisenhower (after some prompting from Joe Steele's allies) declined.[19]